


say it like you mean it

by nessismore



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Developing Relationship, F/M, Some Fluff, Some angst, some bad guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 07:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessismore/pseuds/nessismore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are different kinds of "I love you." It takes a while before Steve figures out which one he'd most like to hear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	say it like you mean it

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this avengerkink prompt: 
> 
> Five times Darcy says, "I love you!" flippantly, and the one time that she really means it.
> 
> It got a bit away from me, but I hope you enjoy! Thanks to metonymy for looking this over for me! Trust me, it was in much worse shape before she got hold of it :)

A small explosion echoes through the tower. Steve rushes to his window, expecting to see…well, he’s learned not to expect what form the threat will take, so he looks for any kind of threat at all. The city looks as peaceful as New York City gets, so the explosion is from the building. And when the explosion is in the building, 9 out of 10 times it’s from the lab, and 9 out of those 9 times, it means Tony and Bruce are involved.  
  
He takes the elevator down to the research center and sees Tony, Bruce, and Dr. Foster chattering excitedly over the charred remains of…something. In the corner and out of the line of fire is Ms. Potts’ assistant, Darcy Lewis, cradling her head in her hands and looking miserable.  
  
“Miss Lewis? What are you doing in here?” It’s not exactly rare to see her in the lab, but it’s certainly rare to see her without Pepper.  
  
“Tony’s got some new science toy, and Pepper thinks he needs adult supervision.” She lets out a huge yawn and doesn’t bother covering her mouth before she lays her head down on the table. “For reasons unknown to me, she seems to think that I qualify as an adult. Hence, babysitting.”  
  
“Watching three scientists blow things up is babysitting?”  
  
“When one of them is Tony? Yes.” Well, he can’t exactly argue with that. “Heads up,” she says and nods towards Tony, Bruce, and Dr. Foster. Steve watches the three scientists press buttons on the charred thing and run to take cover. Darcy covers her ears and Steve does the same, just before an explosion rocks the lab. Debris is flying towards them and he’s about to cover Darcy when he notices that it falls inches from where she’s sitting. She doesn’t even flinch.  
  
He nods towards the machine. “What does it do?”  
  
“I don’t know. Science.”  
  
“And how long have they been doing this?”  
  
“All night.” She looks like a disgruntled child who’s maybe two seconds away from sticking her lower lip out in a pout, and he tries to cover a laugh. “They haven’t slept, so I haven’t slept, and I can’t even leave them alone for two seconds to get coffee because I’m afraid that the next explosion is going to be the one that takes the building down. I’m not certain what my presence here is doing to stop that, but one never knows.”  
  
He can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her. She’s sarcastic and loud and not afraid to say what she thinks even when it’s not the most appropriate, and she scares him just a little, but no one deserves to have to put up with this all night. “I’ll be back.”  
  
She doesn’t say anything, just raises a weary hand in a motion that might be an acknowledgement, and he heads to the coffee shop across the street. Although he and Darcy have both been affiliated with S.H.I.E.L.D. for almost a year, hanging around the building for one reason or another, they don’t know each other well. He spends most of his time with the Avengers or trying to catch up on what he’s missed in the last seventy years and she’s busy helping Pepper…do whatever Pepper does, which mostly seems to be running Stark Industries and keeping Tony mostly in line. He does, however, remember the kind of coffee Darcy likes because she’d made him try it one day when he was waiting for Pepper and Tony in Pepper’s office. The vanilla latte was good, but it wasn’t something he’d order on his own. They seem to pick her up, though, and if ever there was a day she needs it, it is this one.  
  
When he gets back to the lab, Bruce, Tony, and Dr. Foster are still at it and Darcy is sitting, resting her chin in her hands. Her eyes are open but glazed over and for some inexplicable reason, that makes him want to smile. He places the styrofoam cup in front of her, and she jumps. “For you,” he says.  
  
She straightens, picks up the cup, and sniffs. Her eyes go wide. “Is this—“  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She takes several big gulps, then closes her eyes in obvious bliss. “Ugh, I love you.”  
  
Steve looks at her, alarmed. Darcy is a nice girl, but he doesn’t know her all that well, and isn’t she dating one of the junior agents in Coulson’s department? Michael? Marcus? Magnus? Anyhow, Steve’s not the type to go after another guy’s girl. The panic must show on his face, because she laughs, much more awake than she had been.  
  
“Relax, Cap. I’m not expressing my undying devotion.” She takes another sip. “You’re handsome, but nice guys aren’t my type.”  
  
“Oh,“ he says because he feels like he should say something. He can feel the furrow in his brow as he tries to process this.  
  
“There are different kinds of ‘I love yous’, Steve,” she explains with a grin, not even fazed as another explosion rocks the lab. “That one means ‘I’m exhausted and grateful and would kiss the ground you walked on if I had energy because you brought me coffee’. Not ‘let’s get married and have babies.’”  
  
“Oh. Sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t know why he’s apologizing. It just seems like a good thing to say.  
  
She grins at him. “No worries. Next time, I’ll just say thank you. So…thank you.”  
  
He stops by the lab later because he’s supposed to meet with Bruce. Darcy and the three scientists are still there, but this time she’s sitting with them, listening to what they’re saying and doing a credible job of looking like she knows what they’re talking about. She looks up at him, grins, then gestures to Bruce, Tony, and Dr. Foster and shakes her head. Then she uses her fingers to trace a heart in the air and winks at him.  
  
He laughs, not quite so intimidated by her as he was before.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Steve is flipping through channels, looking for something to watch when his phone rings. He takes a quick look at the clock. It’s 2 A.M., and while he has nothing better to do, he really hopes that this isn’t Avenger business. He lets out a little sigh of relief when he sees Pepper’s name on the screen.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Hi Captain, we’ve got a little situation and I think I might need your help.” Steve takes in the sound of her voice—calm, but with that hint of affectionate exasperation that colors all of her interactions with Tony—and the sounds in the background—loud music, raucous laughter and…  
  
“Is that Cappie? Hi Cappie!”  
  
He sits up. “Is that Miss Lewis?”  
  
Pepper sighs. “That’s our situation. She’s had a little too much to drink.”  
  
“Miss Lewis is your situation?” he asks because he’s not sure he understands. Darcy inebriated  does not seem like any kind of emergency to him. But Pepper does sound distressed, and Darcy does sound very, very drunk.  
  
“It’s…a long story. Can you come get us? Clint and Nat are out of town. I’d hate to ask Bruce to come out into this kind of environment, and Tony would be no help at all.”  
  
“Sure,” he says. After all, when a dame needs help, a guy does what he can to provide it. Pepper gives him directions to a bar not far from the tower, and off he goes.  
  
When he arrives, Darcy is sitting on the curb between Pepper and Dr. Foster, her arms slung around them. At first it looks like she’s holding them down, but on closer inspection, he realizes the two women are clutching her around the waist and preventing her from standing.  
  
At Steve’s puzzled look, Dr. Foster grins. “She tried to start a bar brawl.”  
  
“With who?”  
  
A large man in a biker jacket—larger than Steve, and maybe even as large as Thor—exits the bar and scowls at the women on the sidewalk before hurrying away.  
  
Pepper nods towards him. “That guy. She almost broke his nose.” There’s that tone again, the one that says she’d like to strangle Darcy and maybe pat her on the head at the same time.  
  
“He grabbed me, boss. Couldn’t let him get away with that. And you wouldn’t let me bring my taser.” She sounds remarkably sober, but the grin she sends his way is decidedly sloshed. “Hiya, Cap. How’s it hangin’?” She doesn’t seem to expect an answer, however, as she starts singing at the top of her lungs in the next breath. He hears something about cheating hearts and making someone pay and raises an eyebrow at Pepper.  
  
“What do you need?” It turns out that they need help taking Darcy home. The walk isn’t too far, but apparently Darcy is having a little problem staying upright. When Pepper and Jane had tried to steady her enough to go home, she leaned so heavily on Jane that they couldn’t really move, and she was too unsteady to just lean on Pepper. Hearing this, he looks at Pepper in alarm.  
  
“She going to be okay? The way I’ve seen it, no one ever gets this drunk unless they’ve got a problem somewhere that needs fixing.”  
  
Pepper smiles a little. “And here I thought for centuries, young people have been doing it for fun. As it happens, Darcy’s run into a little…snafu in her personal life.”  
  
“Snafu?” Darcy interrupts her song to say a little too loudly and adds a rough scoff for good measure. “S’that what you call it when you find your boyfriend’s face nose deep in another girl’s—“  
  
A small belch covers up the last word, but it doesn’t really take any stretch of the imagination to know what she was going to say. After all, Bucky and some of the other soldiers talked.  
  
Pepper winces at the language. “We caught the boyfriend cheating on her,” she explains.  
  
He looks at Darcy sympathetically. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Darcy doesn’t respond, as she picks up humming her song about heartbreak. She meets his eyes though, and she doesn’t exactly look heartbroken. She looks mad enough to have taken on the biker guy and won.  
  
A thought occurs to him, and he asks, “Is the boyfriend still alive?”  
  
A ghost of a smile plays on Pepper’s lips. “For now.”  
  
“Injured?”  
  
“Not seriously,” Darcy mutters, sounding disgruntled, and he has to smile at her.  
  
“Let’s get you home,” he says, and Pepper and Dr. Foster—Jane—pull Darcy to her feet. He has a split second to appreciate how Darcy looks all dolled up before he takes Jane’s place at Darcy’s side. They make it a few halting steps before Steve says, “This isn’t going to work,” and sweeps her into his arms. He sees Pepper immediately go into damage control mode to make sure that there’s no one around taking pictures.  
  
Darcy chats the entire way, and he realizes that she’s a surprisingly charming drunk as she manages to make him laugh with stories about ill-fated ex-boyfriends, which aren’t so much self-pitying as they are resigned. Soon enough, they’re back at the tower. With Jane’s directions, they get to Darcy’s apartment.  
  
Steve sets her down. She pitches forward, and he catches her. His chuckle tangles nicely with her deep, belly laugh. It seems that the only thing dainty about Darcy Lewis is her size, and he realizes that he kind of likes that. “Oops. You all right there, doll?”  
  
“Why wouldn’t I be?”  
  
“Just checkin’.” He steps back to let Pepper and Jane into Darcy’s apartment, and Darcy follows, still leaning on him. He pushes a lock of hair behind her ear and tries to get her upright. “Go on in. You take care of yourself sweetheart.”  
  
She clings a bit, and nuzzles her nose against his shirt. "Love you, too, Stevie poo!" He grins, until she lets loose the contents of her stomach onto his shoes.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
He doesn’t see Darcy for the next few days, except in passing. He does check in with Pepper to see if she’s alright. While he doesn’t hear anything about Darcy’s breakup, he’s fairly certain that people know. After all, it’s hard to keep a secret when you all work and essentially live together. He does hear about the ex-boyfriend (whose name is actually Myron), who has transferred to another S.H.I.E.L.D. office and who had mysteriously broken his nose before he left. He puts his money on Pepper for the transfer, and he can’t decide if he’d bet on Darcy, Jane, or Tony for the broken nose.  
  
He does get a note from Darcy with an apology and an offer to get his shoes cleaned. He accepts on both counts, then puts the incident out of his mind until he sees her again.  
  
She’s sitting in Jane’s lab working at a laptop. Clint and Tony are flanking her. It does not look like she’s enjoying the conversation, whatever it’s about. She looks up and catches his eye. “Help me,” she mouths, looking at least mildly distressed. He can’t say no. At least this time there’s not much threat to his shoes.  
  
He walks in just in time to hear the tail end of Tony’s story that is definitely not fit for polite company, and Tony and Clint are laughing uproariously. Darcy seems unimpressed.  
  
Tony notices Steve in the doorway and salutes. “Hey, Captain Vomit,” he says, which earns him a hard shove from Darcy.  
  
“Hi. What’s going on in here?” He asks Darcy, but it’s Tony who answers.  
  
“No need to sound so disapproving, Gramps. We’re just trying to cheer up Miss Lewis over here.” He says it with a charming smugness that only Tony can master, but there’s underlying concern there. He’s heard from Pepper (well, from Pepper complaining to Bruce) that Darcy and Tony get along far too well for her peace of mind. It’s nice that he’s trying to cheer her up, but…  
  
“By telling her _that_ story?”  
  
“She loves that story,” Tony says defensively.  
  
Darcy shakes her head. “No. I don’t.”  
  
Clint raises his hand. “I like it.”  
  
“Good for you, Robin Hood,” she says with a dismissive toss of her head. Steve can’t help but admire how the shiny mass of hair moves. “Now go tell it somewhere else. I’ve got work to do.”  
  
“See, this is what we’re talking about,” Clint complains. “She’s always cranky.”  
  
“Get out of my face, and you won’t have to deal with it,” Darcy mutters. Clint mouths “Cranky,” and without looking up, Darcy smacks him on the arm. “Get thee to a nunnery, Barton.”  
  
Instead of leaving, Clint leans on the table and looks at Tony. “My turn?”  
  
“Yeah. Oh! Tell the one about the big guy, Bangkok, and the stripper!”  
  
Steve draws himself up to his full height and does his best intimidating stare. He was there for that story. He doesn’t need to hear Clint tell it again and it should definitely not be repeated in polite company. “The lady would like you to leave her alone.”  
  
He should know by now that even his most intimidating look doesn’t work on either of these two. Tony just looks at him and asks, “You ever go to Buckingham Palace and try to make those dudes in the fuzzy hats crack a smile? No? Of course you haven’t. This is like that. Give it a try, Cap. You might enjoy it.”  
  
“I came down here to get away from Thing 1 and Thing 2. Don’t encourage them,” Darcy says in her most freezing tones. She pushes her glasses up her nose and glares at Tony and Clint.  
  
“Come on, Cap. You afraid you don’t have anything up your sleeve good enough to make our girl smile?” Tony taunts, and Steve tries not to rise to the bait. But Darcy is lacking her usual sparkle, the smirk that usually plays around her  lips, even in the most serious of situations, and the sly look in her eyes that says she’s about to do something outrageous or that she’s at least thinking of it. And right now, it seems imperative that she smile.  
  
“Well…” Darcy makes a disgusted sound and throws her hands in the air.  
  
“Fine. Let’s hear it,” she grumbles. “And after that, all three of you—out!”  
  
Now that all eyes are on him, Steve racks his brain for something to say. Funny has never really been his strong suit, but he’s determined. After a moment, he thinks of a joke he heard one of the new agents telling Agent Hill in the hallway the other day. Hill wasn’t impressed, but he thought it was funny.  
  
“What’s Mozart doing right now?” He waited a beat, but no one says anything. “He’s decomposing.”  
  
He looks at them expectantly. “Get it? Because he was a composer. And he’s dead. Although I guess he’s already decomposed by now.” Still nothing. Tony and Clint are looking at him like they can’t believe that he’s just said that, and Darcy…Steve’s face falls when he sees that her expression is carefully blank.  
  
Then her lips twitch up, just at the corners, and it turns into a small smile, which turns into giggles. “Really, Steve? Decomposing?”  
  
“I thought it was funny,” he says with a shrug.  
  
Darcy rolls her eyes but she grins. “Decomposing,” she says with a snort. “God, I love you. That was so lame.”  
  
Still, she’s laughing—even if she’s laughing at him—and she’s happier than she’s looked in the last few days. He’s decidedly pleased with the effort, even though he knows that Tony and Clint are snickering at him. The next hour is spent listening to Tony and Clint make increasingly ridiculous puns, while Steve tries to ignore the pleasant glow he feels when he thinks of Darcy’s “I love you.”  
  
  
—  
  
  
He’d been dreading the Secret Santa that Darcy and Clint had organized, but it’s surprisingly fun. Finding a gift for Natasha was hard, even with Darcy’s help, but the anticipation of finding out who’s giving what is enough to make him feel like a kid again. He has to suppress a pang of disappointment, though, at not having an excuse to get Darcy a gift.  
  
Darcy has been all smiles in the months since her breakup with Myron. She’d confided in him during lunch one day that she’d liked the idea of Myron more than she’d liked the man himself, and was relieved to end it. She just hadn’t liked how it ended. Apparently, that is a thing that they do now. Have lunch, that is, not talk about her ex-boyfriends. He’s seen Darcy around a lot more often than he previously had, and he likes it.  
  
Now she’s sitting in the circle that consists of the Avengers--including Thor--and Jane and Pepper. They’re opening presents while dressed in terrible Christmas sweaters (at the express command of Clint and Darcy) and other holiday-type adornments. Tony is wearing a garland around his neck like a boa, and Thor’s wearing reindeer antlers with Christmas lights draped over them.  
  
Darcy looks incandescently cheerful, decked out in a bright green sweater with a snowman on it. The sight of her is more than enough to brighten up his day. She’s got tinsel or something in her hair, and she’s wearing a necklace of flashing twinkle lights. Compared to her, he doesn’t look nearly as festive in his Santa sweater and Santa hat.  
  
She leans over and hands him a package, smiling brightly at him. “Merry Christmas, Cappie. From me to you.”  
  
Appreciation fills him as he carefully opens the package, revealing a beautiful wood art box filled with different supplies. Darcy bites her lip nervously as she waits for a reaction. He studies the colored pencils, oil pastels, watercolors, and brushes with a smile. “You said you were thinking of trying different mediums, and I wasn’t sure which ones you were interested in, so I thought I’d fill it up with a bunch of things. Even if you don’t like ‘em, it’s still a pretty sweet box.”  
  
He looks back up at her with a wide smile. “Thank you. It’s wonderful.” Her shoulders shift as she lets out a relieved breath, and he decides he’d like to draw her like this, all soft eyes and joyful grin and bright lights. He pulls her into a hug. “Merry Christmas, Darcy.”  
  
She lays her head against his chest and squeezes him tightly. “Merry Christmas, Steve.” For a moment, it’s just the two of them and it feels…nice.  
  
Then she’s pulling away and they’re both back in their seats, and he’s trying to figure out how and why this moment has changed everything.  
  
The chatter goes on around him as the others open gifts. He’s pleased to see that Natasha likes the earrings he gives her. When Natasha smiles and says “Thank you,” Darcy catches his eye and smirks.  
  
More gifts are exchanged wrapping paper is strewn around the room. It’s messy and loud and chaotic, and for the first time in a long time Steve feels like he’s found a place where he really belongs. Finally, there is one gift left, and Clint hands over a large box to a gleefully bouncing Darcy.  
  
“Oooh, gimme gimme,” she says as she sets the box on her lap and rips the paper off. When she opens the flaps, she lets out an excited shriek. “Omigosh, are you serious?” She pulls a recurve bow out of the box, along with a quiver of arrows. “I take back every bad thing I’ve ever said or thought about you!”  
  
She stands up and dances across the circle, while Pepper glares at Clint. “I thought we’d agreed that you wouldn’t give my employees weapons—“ but the rest of her lecture is lost under Darcy’s excited squeal as she runs up to Clint and throws her arms around him.  
  
“Ohmigosh, this is awesome and I love you!” she says after she presses a kiss to Clint’s cheek. “When can you teach me how to shoot this thing?”  
  
“Whenever you want, Darce,” Clint murmurs staring down at her intently, and Steve’s stomach churns uncomfortably. Darcy has uttered the words “I love you” to everyone from the janitor who opened her office when she locked herself out, to Fury himself. It’s never made him uncomfortable before, but she’s never said it to a man who’s looking at her _like that_. It makes him feel a little sick now.  
  
Still, he smiles along with everyone else as Tony makes the requisite jokes about staying out of the way when Darcy’s practicing, and Thor says something about an arrow hurting more than a taser. When Darcy sticks her tongue out and pulls the string of the bow back, pretending to aim at him, and Steve laughs along with everyone else.  
  
Maybe he’ll try to be around when Clint’s teaching Darcy how to shoot.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Hey Darcy,” Steve says as he knocks on her office door. She looks up and beams at him, which does that funny thing to his stomach that has been happening since Christmas. He pushes that down as he asks, “Is Pepper here?”  
  
She frowns and flips through the calendar on her desk. “Not yet. I didn’t realize you had an appointment.”  
  
“I didn’t. She sent me an e-mail last night to talk about some charity ball.” He walks in and sits across from her without waiting to be invited in, as has become his habit. Placing a vanilla latte on her desk, he leans back and gets comfortable.  
  
Her head snaps up in surprise, and she raises a brow. “Pepper wants _you_ to help plan a charity ball?”  
  
He laughs and shakes his head. “No, I think she wants me to put in an appearance. We’re here to talk schedules, bad guy permitting, and maybe discuss which charities we’d like to highlight. We’d do it over e-mail, but apparently she’s been really electronically overwhelmed.”  
  
“Pretty much. She’s been getting a million e-mails a day, and if that’s an exaggeration, it isn’t by much. She’s probably afraid she’ll miss your messages.”  
  
Steve shrugs. “We’re in the same building, so it’s not like it’s inconvenient. Do you know when she’ll be in?  
  
“I’m afraid not, and she hasn’t mentioned anything about this ball to me. There’s some minor company emergency, which means I’m holding down the fort ’til she gets back, which means that maybe I’m freaking out a little.” She glances at the clock, picks up the latte and takes a grateful sip. “I can call you when she gets in, if you’ve got stuff to do. Otherwise, you’re free to keep me company here.”  
  
“Thanks. I’ll wait, if you don’t mind.” He pulls out his sketchbook and doodles a bit, doing rough sketches from memory of his time before the ice. He’s come to terms with his situation, or is at least getting better at coming to terms with it, and drawing what he remembers comforts him. It’s hard to concentrate, though, with Darcy sitting right there, and he finds himself looking up to steal glances at her as she types furiously at her computer. Soon he begins sketching her.  
  
He looks around her office. He always appreciates comfortable it is. There’s a bookshelf full of well-loved tomes, the chairs and couch are overstuffed and positioned to give a professional but welcoming air. There are plants sporadically placed throughout the office, and it’s bright and colorful and _Darcy_. He frowns when he sees the bow and quiver on the shelf behind her desk. They’re positioned to look like a decoration, but he knows that she can grab it easily in case she needs protection. He’s glad of it, even if the sight of the bow makes his stomach clench.  
  
Steve doesn’t realize he’s tapping his pencil against his sketchbook until she clears her throat. When they make eye contact, she looks meaningfully at the pencil and he stills his hand sheepishly.  
  
He goes back to sketching, but the bow catches his attention again. He knows that there’s nothing going on between Clint and Darcy, but that might be due more to Darcy’s incredibly busy schedule than anything else. Even without this minor company emergency, Pepper has been steadily transferring more and more responsibility to Darcy, and Steve knows she’s barely had time to learn to shoot, let alone date.  
  
Steve went to her first archery lesson, and it was a special kind of torture to see Clint’s arms around Darcy to correct her posture, or show her how to hold the bow. Nothing happened—after all, what could happen when there were one or more of the Avengers at every lesson?—but Steve knows that something _can_ happen, and he needs to figure out how he feels about that. And if he should do something about it.  
  
There’s more throat-clearing from Darcy, which draws Steve back to the present moment. She’s glaring at him and he realizes that once again he’s tapping his pencil. “Sorry,” he says, and she goes back to work. He flips to a fresh page to start a new sketch, but instead he finds himself thinking about Darcy. Again. Still.  
  
Part of the problem is that he’s not sure how Darcy feels about Clint. Heck, Steve doesn’t even know how she feels about _him_. Why _would_ she like him anyway? Other than the superhero thing, which is nothing special in this building, he’s pretty unremarkable. She seems to like his company, or at least she doesn’t hate it, and she appreciates when he gets her coffee, or tries to make her laugh. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, because those are things that friends do and maybe she just likes him as a friend. Which he would be okay with because he just wants her to be happy, and if Clint makes her happy…  
  
“Steve!” He looks up and she’s definitely not happy now. She’s glaring at him once again. No, she’s glaring at his pencil, which in his agitation is thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings. “I love you, but if you don’t stop tapping that pencil I’m going to tase you and then draw unspeakable things on your face. In sharpie. Okay?”  
  
He drops the pencil. “Okay.”  
  
He takes heart in the fact that she hasn’t kicked him out or sent him to wait in Pepper’s office. He tries not to read too much into that, or the “I love you.” He remembers her saying that there are different kinds, and he’s sure this isn’t the romantic kind. Still, he’s filled with that warm, glowy feeling that he’s fairly sure _is_ romantic love.  
  
Heaven help him, he even loves the way she threatens him.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Steve smells like a sewer. He knows this because Tony has told him this ten times, and no one has bothered to disagree. Also, he had been in a sewer, so there’s that. They’re on their way back to the tower after a mission and Tony can’t resist needling Steve.  
  
“I’m telling you, Cap, you should at least shower before you see your girlfriend.” Steve’s gotten better at the Ignore Tony game, but he can’t resist responding to that.  
  
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says, but Tony just laughs.  
  
“Right. Because you don’t check in with Pepper’s little pet whenever you get back.” Steve does, actually, but he hadn’t thought that anybody else had noticed. They aren’t a couple, but just seems a natural thing to do to go to her because. After all of the ugliness that he sees, he needs the peace that infuses him whenever he’s with her. He likes it when she fusses, too, even though she says she doesn’t.  
  
He doesn’t say any of this to Tony or the others, though. They don’t need to know. “Be careful that Darcy and Pepper don’t hear you calling her that.”  
  
Before Tony has a chance to respond, his cell phone rings. Steve only catches the words “attack,” “hostage,” “Stark Tower,” and “Lewis” as Tony repeats them before he’s breaking into a run.  
  
“Damn it, Cap, wait!” He ignores Tony’s shout and keeps running.  
  
A few seconds later, he’s being lifted off his feet as Tony flies him back to the tower. Any number of scenarios are running through Steve’s head, each one worse than the next, and soon enough they’re back at the tower, in front of Darcy’s office. The door is closed, the shades drawn on the glass walls. There’s no way to see in there. He hears Tony whispering to JARVIS, and realizes that there are absolutely no eyes in, not from security cameras and not from the outside. Agents are silently poised at the ready in the hallway.  
  
All strategy is out the door as panic starts to set in. Tony holds him back. “Before you go busting in there, we need a plan,” he says quietly. “For Darcy. You don’t want them to hurt Darcy.”  
  
And then the door opens. Just as Clint, Natasha, and Bruce are rushing into the corridor, Darcy falls out of her office, a bloody arrow clutched in one hand and Clint’s present to her in the other. Her hair is wild, her sweater is ripped, and her eyes are wide and wild as she scans the crowd. Her eyes land on Steve and she tries to send him a tremulous smile.  
  
“Hiya Cap. There are some bad guys in my office.” She scrambles to her feet and drops her weapons. He can’t tell if she throws herself into his arms or if he’s the one that pulls her to him, but she’s there, and he finds it much easier to breathe now. He nods to the others to check her office, then hears someone let out a low whistle and Tony murmur, “Holy shit.”  
  
Clint sticks his head out of the office and says, “Cap, she took out all four of ‘em.”  
  
“Thatta girl,” he whispers, as he presses a kiss to her hair. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah.” She looks up at him and his eyes darken at the growing bruise on her cheek and the cut at the corner of her mouth. “One of ‘em hit me a couple of times but that’s it.”  
  
“Then you shot him.” Steve gently wipes the blood from the cut. There’s also blood on her blouse, too much to be from her lip, and he tries not to shudder at how close she must have been to her attacker to get all of that on her. Too close. He tangles his fingers in her hair and pulls her back against his chest.  
  
“Assholes shouldn’t have freaked me out. You stink. Why do you stink?” She doesn’t let go of him, though, which is fine with him because he needs to hold on to her to assure himself that she is safe and whole and here.  
  
Agents are filing into the hallway. Agent Hill comes and touches Darcy’s shoulder. “We’ll need you for a debriefing if you’re up to it.”  
  
“Can’t it wait?” Steve demands. “Let her get cleaned up at least.” He turns to Darcy and strokes her hair. “We’ll send an agent down with you so you won’t be alone.”  
  
Darcy shakes her head and squares her shoulders. Her voice is steadier now and she’s not shaking nearly as hard “No. If you guys can do it after saving the world, I can do it after facing down a few ugly dudes in bad suits.”  
  
“You don’t have to,” Steve insists.  
  
Darcy sags against him. “I need to. Debrief away, Agent Hill.”  
  
He wants to stay with her, but Fury wants information stat—on both the mission today and the incident in the tower. When Pepper arrives in a flurry of concern and anger and fussing over Darcy, Steve has no excuse to stay.  
  
The others are in the middle of giving their report but Steve interrupts. “How did they get in? What did they want?” He refuses to answer any questions until his own are answered. Two of the men are alive, and one of them is talking. Apparently they work (or worked) for one of Tony’s biggest competitors. They thought that as Pepper’s assistant, she would be a weak link who might have access to plans and prototypes of Stark Industries technology. When Steve demands a bodyguard for Darcy, Fury assures him that it’s already in the works.  
  
“Not that she needed one today,” he says with a small smile. “She tased one of the bastards, shot two more with that bow of hers, and stabbed the fourth with an arrow. It was impressive.”  
  
Steve feels a swell of pride for this woman, who refused to go quietly and managed to save herself, but it’s mingled with rage and fear. It’s the latter two that causes his voice to tighten when he says, “She did need one. One of those bastards _hit_ her. That never would have happened if she’d been protected.” He ends this with a glare to Tony. He knows it’s not Tony’s fault, but he needs to blame someone.  
  
Bruce shakes his head and puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and they finally get on with the rest of the debriefing. He’s anxious to go, to see her, but takes Natasha’s suggestion (which is not so much a suggestion as it is a command) that he go clean up before he sees her. He’s just finished getting dressed when there’s a knock on the door. He opens it to see Darcy. She’s flanked by Agent Hill and Pepper, who squeezes Darcy’s shoulder then leaves with Agent Hill without a word.  
  
Darcy stands in his doorway, looking impossibly small and vulnerable in an oversized sweatshirt that he recognizes as one he thought he’d lost months ago.  
  
“Hey,” he says quietly, and she takes that as an invitation, stepping into his room and leaning into him. He wraps his arms arms around her and holds her to him tightly.  
  
“You smell a lot better.” He chuckles, and he feels the way it rumbles through both of them.  
  
“Thanks,” he says as he rubs her back. He kicks the door closed, because he knows that Darcy doesn’t want anyone to see her this vulnerable. “You want to talk about it?”  
  
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”  
  
“You don’t have to.” She relaxes against him, and they stand there for a long while. Eventually, he finds himself supporting all of her weight, and he picks her up then sets her down in his bed so that she can rest. She refuses to let go of him so he lies down beside her. She dozes, and maybe he does, too, but mostly they lie there, with her head on his chest and his arms holding her close.  
  
“I killed two men today,” she says breaking the silence. Her voice is strong, stronger than it’s been all day and he can almost feel her putting herself back together after coming so close to being shattered. “Maybe they deserved it, but I killed them. I should be thinking about that. I should be feeling sorry. But all I can feel is relieved because I kept thinking that I was going to die. I was going to die and I hadn’t told you that I love you, and that really sucked.”  
  
His breath catches and he feels fear because of what she’s been through, and joy because of what she’s said, and there’s no way he _can’t ask_ , “You love me?” Even though he knows. The flavor of this “I love you” is different than all of the others and he knows what this one means.  
  
“Is that a problem?” she asks, and there’s a slight teasing note in her voice because _she_ knows.  
  
“No.” He kisses her forehead. “I love you.” She sighs contentedly and snuggles into him.  
  
There’s no further discussion, no need for it. There will be time for that later; time to process what she’s had to do today, time to say what exactly they mean to each other, time to figure out what the future holds.  
  
For now, they lie in his bed, drawing comfort from each other. **  
**

**Author's Note:**

> The joke Steve tells is one I saw on tumblr. I got a kick out of it, so I figured I'd use it here. The story title comes from one of my favorite albums, "Say It Like You Mean It" by the Starting Line.
> 
> Thanks for reading! And constructive criticism is always welcome!


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